Cereal Drip: Kristopher Kites Turns Breakfast Nostalgia Into Hip-Hop Bling

What has always been “follow your nose” is now transitioning into “follow your ears” for a new campaign that celebrates Kellogg’s Froot Loops deep roots in hip-hop culture, having been name-dropped in more than 1,000 rap tracks. 

Teaming up with Chicago-based jeweler Kristopher Kites, the brand is turning its musical shoutouts into wearable art that fuses cereal nostalgia with modern culture. The campaign invites fans to “follow their ears,” honoring the artists and communities that have helped shape hip-hop through art, fashion, and jewelry. And did we mention there’s a chance to win exclusive pieces?

Kristopher Kites had some time to sit down with The Blast to discuss the collaboration, his design journey, and how fans can enter to win one of his Froot Loops designs.

For Kites, this partnership, just like his brand, was “built off of nostalgia” and something he was really excited to be a part of.

“My brand is based and built off of nostalgia. And Froot Loops, they’ve been looking for a big mark to make. With this new campaign, they changed up, their true quote that has been their motto for decades, which is ‘follow your nose’ but now it’s ‘follow your ears.’ They’ve been connecting with hip-hop, and they love my jewelry and wanted me to make some cool pieces to 'follow your ears.'"

In addition to Kites' jewelry being based off of nostalgia, it’s also inspired by hip-hop. Kites said he loves cartoon characters and hip-hop, and "with hip-hop being so strongly inspired by Froot Loops, it's been name dropped over a thousand times in songs," this collab was a perfect fit for him. 

From start to finish, the creative process lasted about five months for Kites, who said he “loved every minute of it.” Kites said the process goes “a million and one ways” before rolling out the finished product. 

“Essentially, with this process, it all starts from the concepts. Like, hey, what do we want to make? What do we want to do? And in this case, I was making a watch, a jumbo-like pendant with a nice necklace to fit, and then also, a mini charm,” he shared. “And so in that aspect, all of those details, all of those three items are made three different manufacturing ways.”

With Kites' products typically "based in clear" and Froot Loops being all about the colors, "that was a crucial point in the manufacturing process." It was important for Kites that the colors were just right and popped.

Many colors were tested for these items, and they were made 2D before 3D and photoshopped in 3D to the actual real-life application. 

“In house, I sampled a lot of the pieces myself to try to figure out how to make sure these colors hit to make sure that overall the shape is there. Froot Loops has a very curated texture, so making sure we had those textures,” he continued. 

Kites has been designing since just 16 years old. He started out sewing clothes and that later evolved into jewelry.

"I was sewing clothes for years. I would just try to find any type of fashion program that I could and if I wasn't in school, I was trying to be around clothes as much as possible," Kites told The Blast. "Eventually from sewing clothes, I thought what is the one thing missing from everyone's outfits that everyone can wear. It was accessories."

For Kites, moving over to create unique accessories was an easier way for him to get noticed and "stop people in their tracks."

"I was watching cartoons all the time and art documentaries. Those were the only two things that I watched. Through that, I was inspired," he said. "I created by grabbing vintage figures and encapsulated them in plastic and making them into jewelry."

He began that journey in 2018 and has evolved a lot along the way, with no end in sight.

When creating the designs for Froot Loops, Kites wanted to make sure to keep what made the brand so timeless while adding other fun aspects.

"With Froot Loops, it's timeless. I seen an old box of Froot Loops recently and I love vintage stuff. Even as it sits amongst these other cereals, it pops out. It's timeless," he said. "Not much has been changed but even as they make these big pivots right now, you're staying with the times as much as you are already timeless and breathing life into history. It's not hopping on a wave of what's hot in hip-hop right now. We're talking about 1,000 mentions over decades. This is the history."

When talking about the three pieces he designed for this partnership with Froot Loops, you could tell just how much he loved the entire process and the final product.

"The first piece is the charm. The charm is really modeled after the Froot Loops cereal box, which I think is so dope. We were working around a few different designs just trying to figure out how is that going to hit, how is it going to resonate with people, make people love it, and also too, colors, colors, colors," Kites told The Blast. "Sampling with a lot of colors, we wanted it to be a color splash. Even if you're wearing a white outfit, wearing this mini charm, it almost paints your outfit even if you're only wearing white. It fills up that space that was missing."

The next piece is the watch. He said it was crazy seeing it because it was the first watch he's made like this. He wanted it to have a luxury feel to it with real gemstones.

"The Froot Loop sits in the middle, with like an aroma of the colors of how the bowl is with the leftover cereal the way it sits in there," he said. "The watch is directly inspired by that. I was inspired by the bottom of the bag of cereal when all the colors are crushed up. These are core memories that everyone already knows and gets."

Beginning today, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, fans can get a look at Kites' Froot Loops pieces on social media. And to make it even more exciting, there's a chance you can win one of the pieces.

If you want a chance to win one of Kites' Froot Loop pieces, visit the cereal's social media pages as well as Kites' to enter.

For more information about Kristopher Kites and his work, visit his website.